Page:Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches by Anne Turgot.djvu/112

Rh employed in undertakings which involve labour; but, whatever be the way in which money is employed, its produce cannot increase or decrease without all the other employments experiencing a proportionate increase or decrease.

S89
The current interest of money is the thermometer by which one may judge of the abundance or scarcity of capitals; it is the measure of the extent a Nation can give to its enterprises in agriculture, manufacture & commerce.

The current interest on money placed on loan can, then, be regarded as a kind of thermometer of the abundance or scarcity of capitals in a Nation, and of the extent of the undertakings of every sort on which it may embark. It is evident that the lower the interest of money is, the greater is the value of landed estates. A man who has a rent-roll of fifty thousand livres has a property worth only a million, if estates are sold at the twentieth penny; he has two millions if estates are sold at the fortieth penny. If interest is at five per cent. all uncleared land whose produce would not bring five per cent., over and above the replacement of the advances and the recompense for the care of the Cultivator, would remain uncultivated. No manufacture, no commerce will maintain itself which will not bring in five per cent., over and above the wages of the undertaker's exertions and the risks. If there is a neighbouring Nation in which the interest of money is only two per cent, not only will it carry on all the branches of commerce from which the Nation where interest is at five per cent. finds